Manahoana daholo!!

Welp, it's been one month since I've been in Madagascar! I have had nothing but an amazing time, the people are wonderful and Madagascar is wonderful.

STAGING

I left Oregon on June 9th for staging in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Being one of the first to arrive at the hotel from my group, I kind of just walked around a little bit, and then my roommate Crystal showed up! By that time (around 7:00pm) we were starving. So we met up with a couple of other people in our stage and wandered around Philadelphia until we found a little hole in the wall cheese steak place that was amazing. Actual staging was the next day, and we played a bunch of ice breakers to meet everyone, and then went through the initial rules and regulations that pertain to Peace Corps as a whole.
I've apparently become the 'mom' of my stage, so when we played a silent grouping game where everyone had a colored sticker placed on their back and had to group together based on color without speaking, I had 3 colored stickers, so I didn't belong in any of the groups. Apparently that is a good thing, and my stage was circled around me, instead of me being pushed to the side. Inclusion!

We had the rest of that day to explore Philly more, and I went to Reading Street Market, which is kind of like Pike Place, only smaller. Had an awesome lunch, and then had more cheese steak for dinner. And then a group of 4 of us walked to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to see the Rocky steps. And then we proceeded to RUN up the Rocky steps. What a work out.

After staying up all night, our group of 32 Education volunteers got on a bus at 2:00am and drove to JFK international airport. Our flight was at 11:00am, and we got there at about 6:00am. So pretty much everyone went to sleep in the middle of the airport. We finally got to board the plane, and settled in for an 18 hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. I don't remember much of the flight because I slept for about 10 hours of it, but it was long!

We arrived in Jo-Burg, and then had to hop on an airplane to Antananarivo, Madagascar. That flight was almost entirely over the ocean, and was about 3 hours long. We arrived in Tana at 2:00pm, and were welcomed by the country director, Dee. And then pushed on a van for a 3 hour trip to our training town, Mantasoa.

PRE-SERVICE TRAINING

For the first three days, we stayed at the training center, probably so we can rest a little bit before jumping into home stay. Those first three days were filled with a bunch of sessions on living safely in Mantasoa, and basic survival Malagasy for use in our host family.

And then we were dropped off at our host families. And I am so so happy with mine! I live in a two-story house with a mom, a dad, and a little brother. I also have 7 cats and 2 dogs. And the family raises pigs to sell, and pretty much every family in Madagascar has chickens. I have never seen so many chickens running around everywhere, seriously EVERYWHERE.

My days are filled with language class from 8:00am to 12:00pm, lunch with my host family, and then technical training sessions from 2:00pm to 5:00pm, and then back to host families for dinner and the rest of the day. Wash, rinse, and repeat every day of the week. Except Sunday, we do not do anything  on Sunday. And then we were here for Madagascar's Independence Day, which was interesting, and loud. Music out of every house, and every store. We went to the EPP (elementary school) to listen to some speeches, so that was SUPER fun. Not. It was all in Malagasy, and I could only understand about every 5th word. Oh well.

I know this blog isn't all that detailed about my actual time in Madagascar, but that's because the last month has been so repetitive. I am on tech trip right now, so there will be more exciting posts to follow!

Veloma!